


Victim

by YumeArashi



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Beating, Bullying, Discrimination, Gen, Kink Meme, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeArashi/pseuds/YumeArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Malik fights back, he'll reveal too much, so he endures the taunts and beatings.  Altair doesn’t understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victim

**Author's Note:**

> For kinkmeme prompt: http://forkinsocket.livejournal.com/19860.html?thread=5322388#t5322388

“Hey, there’s that cripple!”

Malik steeled his shoulders and continued walking.

“Look, he’s got brushes and ink!  He wants to try to earn a living like real people!”

The assassin’s jaw clenched.  No matter how often he heard such comments – and it was very, very often – they still grated on him. 

“And all those the groceries, he must have had a good day begging by the roadside to afford that much.”

He longed to turn and snap at the trio that not only were the comments obnoxious, but unoriginal.  Every bully had more or less the same things to say.  But of course he could not do that, not without the subsequent fight revealing what he really was.  So he could only grit his teeth and keep walking, hoping that the idiots would confine themselves to verbal assaults.

He heard steps behind him, and tensed for the hard punch that sent him sprawling.  No such luck today.  He curled up to protect his stomach and face as more blows fell, the guards issuing laughing taunts and lazy accusations of having stolen his food and supplies.

Thankfully, today the beating did not last long before a cry of ‘Thief!  Help!’ was heard a few buildings away, and the guards loped off in halfhearted pursuit of their duties.

As Malik pushed himself off the ground, a hand was held out before him.  He ignored it and stood, and Altair instead gathered the scattered items from his basket.

“Leave it, it’s ruined,” Malik snapped.

“Why do you let them?” Altair asked, falling in beside Malik as the other headed back toward the Bureau, rather than bothering with a trip back to the market to replace the destroyed goods.   “Even now you could have cut their throats before they even realized you were a threat.”

“Only a novice like you would ask such  an idiotic question,” Malik snapped.  “Unlike you, I must live in this city, and I cannot afford for the guards to target me. “  He lifted his empty sleeve, pointing the stub of his arm accusingly at Altair.  “I’m a little too recognizable now to blend with scholars or sit unassumingly on a bench.”

“You could assign them as targets to the novices.  You have the authority to do that.”

“Of course I do, but if every guard who harassed a certain one-armed cripple started turning up dead, people would start asking questions.  That’s your problem, Altair, you never _think_.”  They’d reached the Bureau roof, and Malik turned to the other assassin.  “Go away and stop bothering me with your asinine questions.  Gather information on your target.”

“I already have.”

“It is not enough.  Gather more.”

“You have not even heard what I already know.”

“I don’t need to.  Go away.”

Altair did not follow as Malik dropped down into the courtyard, and Malik sighed in relief as he went inside.  A nap would help him forget the aches of his most recent beating.

 

* * *

 

When he woke sometime later, the Bureau’s counter held three bloody feathers.  He didn’t know where Altair had gotten the feathers, but he knew what they meant.   And despite grumbling that he’d told the idiot to leave it alone, there was a certain satisfaction to be had as he stored them away.

Perhaps he would go back to the market today after all.


End file.
